The Thirteenth Temple: The Logan Utah Temple (The last one)

Thats right people, we finally made our goal and went to the last temple on our list which was the Logan Utah Temple. We went this past Wednesday to a nice night session. It felt good to finally achieve our goal but it was also hard because it was our last one. In less than a year we have been able to visit all 13 Utah Temples. Maybe our next goal will be all Idaho Temples.

History:

The Logan Utah Temple was announced on May 18, 1877. The site dedication and groundbreaking was on May 17th, 1877. Orson Pratt did the site dedication and John W Young did the groundbreaking. It then took 7 years of volunteer workers to build the five story temple. The temple was then dedicated on May 17-19, 1884 by John Taylor. Some interesting things about the temple is that it was first painted white to hide the stone color, but in the early 1900s the paint was allowed to weather away leaving the original stone color showing that is still seen today. Another instead fact is that in December 4th, 1917 there was an electrical fire that burned the southeast part of the temple (it was of course fixed). This temple was also the first temple to have progressive style mural ordinance rooms, but in 1977 it became the first temple to be completely gutted and rebuilt inside to work with film ordinance rooms. Some people were sad about this because they felt it lost a lot of the original pioneer beauty. After the renovations the temple had an open house from February 5th to March 3rd, 1979. Then it was rededicated by President Spencer W. Kimball from March 13-15, 1979.

Architecture/Decor:

The Logan Utah Temple is an interesting temple in that on the outside it has all the majestic beauty of an older temple such as Manti, and St George, yet on the inside it has more of a look close to the other temples built around it's renovation time period (aka Provo and Ogden). The color skeem is also green and gold. The Temple is also built on a hill making it so that you can see it throughout Cache Valley.

Helpful things to note when visiting the temple:

Location:

The temple is located on top of a hill off of Highway 91.

Scheduling and Temple Clothing:

If you are going to the Logan Utah Temple you do not need to call ahead and schedule an appointment. There are also temple clothes available to rent there.

The source that I used and a great source to learn more is:

Logan Utah Temple: http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/logan/

The Twelfth Temple: The Provo Utah Temple

So first I like to start off by saying sorry I have been horrible at updating this blog. Its almost April and I am finally making my post for last February 5th, when Tyler and I went to the Provo Utah Temple. It was my birthday and so for one of the things I wanted to do on my birthday was go to another temple on our list. I picked the Provo Utah Temple.

History:

The Provo Utah Temple was announced to be built on August 14th, 1967. The site dedication and ground breaking was done on September 15th, 1969. The dedication was done by President Joseph Fielding Smith and the groundbreaking was done by Hugh B. Brown. The open house was then January 10th-29th, 1972, and was dedicated by Joseph Fielding Smith on February 9th, 1972. There were two session to dedicate the temple. There were over 70,000 people that attended the dedication. People were seated at the temple, and BYU buildings that include: Marriott Center, Fieldhouse, JSB, HFAC for the temple dedication. The Provo Utah temple is located across from the Provo Mission Training Center and close to the Brigham Young University Campus. It is also known as being the busiest temple in the world. Its sister temple is the Ogden Utah Temple.

Architecture/Decor:

The architecture is much like the Ogden Utah Temple, and within the past year the colors have been redone to be green and gold instead of pink and white. Something that is interesting about the original design of the Provo Utah Temple is that it was made to look like a "cloud by day and a pillar by night" referring to how the Children of Israel was looked over by God. This was done by having the lower part like a big white cloud (hence it's interesting shape) and the spire being originally gold. This was changed in renovations in 2003 where the spire was painted white and an Angel Moroni was put on the top. The original design had planned to have an Angel Moroni on top but it wasn't until thirty-one years later that one was put on it.

Helpful things to note when visiting the temple:

Location:

The location is pretty easy to find. If you just get off I-15 at University Parkway and follow it into Provo through Orem and then turn on 9th in the direction you see the temple.

Scheduling and Temple Clothes:

You don't need to call ahead to schedule a time to do a session and there are also temple clothes that you can rent there.

The source that I used and a great source to learn more is:

Provo Utah Temple: http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/provo/